Paul Féron-Vrau, a wealthy textile industrialist from the North of France who was nephew and heir to Philibert Vrau,[1] founded La Presse Régionale on 1 August 1905.
[3] The group's objective was to provide financial support to provincial Catholic newspapers, enabling them to establish a solid footing, build a readership, and sustain operations.
Paul Féron-Vrau and André Bernard, both prominent figures in the ALP, leveraged the press group to combat the Bloc des gauches and its anticlerical policies, including the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State.
The group owned several major newspapers, including La Liberté du Sud-Ouest, and aimed to establish a robust alternative to conservative and reactionary press networks aligned with the Fédération Républicaine.
[13] Known for its strong Catholic alignment, it ran editorials opposing the "tyranny of a parliamentary majority" and the "Masonic discipline" of the Third French Republic, it maintained close ties with parish press committees and clergy.
A major turning point came in 1928 with the departure of director Eugène Delahaye after disputes over the paper's stance towards Action Française, a position influenced by Archbishop Charost aligning with Vatican directives.
[20] Financial struggles led to subsidies from L’Ouest-Éclair in the 1930s, and during the occupation, the journal ceased publication in 1944, replaced by La Voix de l’Ouest, aligned with the Resistance.